Notwithstanding that the name has a certain postmodern ring to it, I think it’s a nice name as it allows for both freedom and flexibility in terms of where we want to take things with it.

Why did we establish this monthly event? Simply because Tokyo is full of amazing universities, which lead us to reason that there must be heaps and heaps of amazingly intelligent scholars working in these universities. But, and here’s the catch, they do not talk to each other for various reasons. (too busy, don’t know others exist, difficult to arrange meetings – formal or informal)

Our first event took place last month, next in one week from now (please check out our FB page, and sign up for the event!), and so far I’ve been really happy about the results. Both Jakob and I are devoting our free time for this, but we both believe in it as academia is, to a large extent, about free flow of ideas. Although people come from different disciplines and academic backgrounds, quite often we share something in common: be it a common vision, body of knowledge, theoretical background, IPAs, or pedagogical background. In any case, ABW was created to establish connections between academics – what happens from there on, remains to be seen!